[Street with Lamp Post and Wine Shop]

Unknown

1850s · Albumen silver print · Photographs

In 1841 William Henry Fox Talbot patented the first negative-positive photographic process, which formed the basis of photography until the digital age. The photographer placed a piece of paper coated in a solution of light-sensitive silver salts in the camera, exposed it to sunlight, and developed the latent image to produce a negative that could then be printed as multiple positives. Any imperfections in the negative were reproduced in the print. Here the negative’s missing corner was eliminated by cropping. A modern gas lamppost anchors this image of a typical street corner in a British village.

Artist

Unknown

Date

1850s

Medium

Albumen silver print

Department

Photographs

Credit line

Gift of Joyce F. Menschel, 2013